Tempted

lung or anything?” Shaunee asked, looking as upset as her twin sounded.
    Stevie Rae shoved the Twins aside so she could get close to me. “Talk to me, Z. Are you really okay?”
    “I’m fine. I’m not dying or anything like that.” My thoughts had reordered themselves, though I couldn’t seem to shake off the last traces of the despair I’d known with A-ya. I understood my friends were scared that my body had begun rejecting the Change. Forcing myself to focus on the here and now I held my hand out to Stevie Rae. “Here, help me up. I’m better now.”
    Stevie Rae pulled me up, careful to keep her hand under my elbow while I swayed slightly before finding my balance.
    “What happened to you, Z?” Damien asked as he studied me.
    What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to admit to my friends that I’d had an incredibly vivid memory of a past life where I’d given myself to our enemy of today? I hadn’t even had time to wade through the maze of new emotions the memory had caused within me. How was I going to explain them to my friends?
    “Just tell us, child. The truth spoken is always less frightening than supposition,” said Sister Mary Angela.
    I sighed and blurted, “The tunnel scared me!”
    “Scared you? Like, there’s something in there?” Damien had finally quit staring at me and was peering nervously into the dark opening.
    The Twins took a couple steps farther into the root cellar and away from the tunnel.
    “No, there’s nothing in there.” I hesitated. “At least I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s not what scared me.”
    “You expect us to believe you fainted because you were scared of the dark?” Aphrodite said.
    They all stared at me.
    I cleared my throat.
    “Hey, y’all. Maybe there’s stuff Zoey just doesn’t wanna talk about,” said Stevie Rae.
    I looked at my best friend and realized if I didn’t say something about what had just happened to me I wouldn’t be able to face what I needed to do about her.
    “You’re right,” I told Stevie Rae. “I don’t want to talk about it, but you guys deserve to hear the truth.” I let my gaze take in the rest of the group. “That tunnel freaked me out so much because my soul recognized it.” I cleared my throat and went on, “I remembered being trapped in the earth with Kalona.”
    “You mean because there really is some of A-ya inside of you?” Damien asked softly.
    I nodded. “I’m me, but I’m also, somehow, still a part of her.”
    “Interesting . . .” Damien breathed a long sigh.
    “Well, what the hell does that mean for you and Kalona today?” Aphrodite asked.
    “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!” I burst out, the stress and honest-to-goddess confusion about what had just happened boiled over inside me. “I don’t have the damn answers. All I have is the memory and zero time to process it. How about you guys back off just a little and let me get the mess inside my head straight?”
    Everyone shuffled around and mumbled okays, sending me
she’s lost her mind
looks. Ignoring my gawking friends, and the unanswered Kalona questions that were almost visible in the air around me, I turned to Stevie Rae. “Explain to me exactly how you made the tunnel.”
    I could tell by the question mark in her blue eyes that she was worried about my tone. I hadn’t sounded all “Crap! I just fainted and need to change the subject ’cause I’m embarrassed by being a reincarnated chick.” I’d sounded like a High Priestess.
    “Well, it wasn’t really that big of a thing.” Stevie Rae looked nervous and uncomfortable, like she was trying too hard to be nonchalant because she was feeling the exact opposite. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay? Shouldn’t we go up out of here and maybe get you a brown pop or somethin’? I mean, if this place gives you flashbacks, talkin’ someplace else sounds like a good idea.”
    “I’m okay. Right now I just want to hear about the tunnel.” I met her gaze steadily. “So tell me how you did this.”
    I could sense the other kids, as well as Sister Mary Angela, watching us with curiosity mixed in with their confusion, but I kept focused on Stevie Rae.
    “’Kay, well, you know the Prohibition tunnels are practically everywhere under the downtown buildings, right?”
    I nodded. “Right.”
    “Also, remember that I told you I’d been doin’ some reconnoitering to see where they all went?”
    “Yeah, I remember.”
    “Okay, so, I found that kinda